Review by New York Times Review
THE SLOW CRACKUP of China's last imperial dynasty during its "century of humiliation" was so fantastical it could have been made up by a comic book artist: an aspiring civil servant failed his entrance exam, fell into a delirium, dreamed he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ sent to deliver China from the Qing dynasty and ignited the Taiping Rebellion in 1850. Twenty million people died in the ensuing chaos. In the late 1890s, peasants from the north, affronted by Western influence in the empire, formed a secret society to practice the martial and spiritual disciplines of Chinese folk religion, which some believed made them invulnerable to European bullets and cannon fire. The belief did not survive the test of experience, but did earn the Boxer Rebellion an enduring place in popular memory. An alliance of British, French, German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, American, Italian and Japanese soldiers easily crushed the Boxers and the imperial Chinese soldiers who joined them, but not before the Boxers had killed more than 30,000 Chinese Christian converts. The Westerners had arrived preaching a Christian message of peace and compassion. They also came in search of easy profits from the opium trade, and waged a war to ensure those profits kept flowing. The indie comic artist Gene Luen Yang, a child of Taiwanese immigrants to the United States and an observant Roman Catholic, wrestles with the central ambiguity of colonialism throughout his remarkable set of linked graphic novels, "Boxers" and "Saints," recently named to the long list for the National Book Award in young people's literature. The nuance conveyed in the dialectical design of the companion volumes counteracts the mythmaking that can resuit from combining history and fable in comic book form. In "Boxers," the story of a Chinese village boy who grows up to deliver martyrdom to the Christian heroine of "Saints" with a thrust of his sword through her heart, Yang depicts resentful peasants turning into vengeful warrior gods. In these sections, the sepia-toned palette that predominates elsewhere explodes into vivid colors that impart a heroic aura to their actions. But when they set fire to a church full of women and children, they remain the dun-colored peasants they really were all along. Both volumes show how everyday humiliations by foreigners bred fear and hatred in the Chinese. But Yang also portrays the missionaries' tireless efforts to spread Christian learning and help orphaned children. Though many Chinese found Christianity threatening (and with good cause - it stirred up social conflicts that killed millions), the faith liberated and strengthened others, like the heroine of "Saints," a fatherless, outcast girl whose nocturnal visits from the spirit of Joan of Arc help her imagine herself a Christian warrior. Despite the ostensibly evenhanded way Yang presents opposed perspectives, it's clear he views the Boxer Rebellion as a series of massacres conducted by xenophobes who wound up harming the very culture they had pledged to protect. In order to attack a group of foreigners who had taken shelter in Beijing, they burned down the imperial library that housed much of the ancient literary legacy of China. GENE LUEN YANG shot to prominence in 2007 when his book "American Born Chinese" became the first graphic novel to win a Printz Award for young adult literature. In it, a first-generation Taiwanese-American youth learns to accept his Chinese identity after "selling his soul" in order to become a white boy able to win the romantic affection of a white girl. Though Yang makes no explicit connection between the atrocities recounted in his new magnum opus and the superior desirability of the white boy in "American Born Chinese" - that would be absurd - both works proceed from the insight that what we love and whom we worship are always conditioned by relations of power. In the fraught confrontation of West and East, staged on battlefields in the 19th century, or on school playgrounds and in cafeterias in late-20th-century San Jose, the continuing story is one of inequality. WESLEY YANG, a contributing editor at New York magazine, is writing a book about Asian-Americans.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 13, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In American Born Chinese (2006), Yang spoke to the culture clash of Chinese American teen life. In Boxers the first volume in a two-book set, concluding with Saints (2013) about the Boxer Rebellion at the end of the nineteenth century in China, he looses twin voices in harmony and dissonance from opposite sides of the bloody conflict. Boxers follows a young man nicknamed Little Bao, who reacts to religious and cultural oppression by leading the uprising from the provinces to Peking, slaughtering foreign devils and soldiers along the way. Between the two books, Yang ties tangled knots of empathy where the heroes of one become the monsters of the other. Little Bao and his foil from Saints, Four-Girl, are drawn by the same fundamental impulses for community, family, faith, tradition, purpose and their stories reflect the inner torture that comes when those things are threatened. Yang is in superb form here, arranging numerous touch points of ideological complexity and deeply plumbing his characters' points of view. And in an homage to the driving power of stories themselves, Bao is captivated by visions sprung from lore: the spirits he believes possess him and his fighters. Much blood is spilled as Little Bao marches toward his grim fate, which is even more unsettling given that Yang hasn't fundamentally altered his squeaky clean, cartoonishly approachable visual style. A poignant, powerhouse work of historical fiction from one of our finest graphic storytellers.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
With a superbly executed "diptych" of graphic novels, Yang (American Born Chinese) employs parallel storylines to represent two opposing Chinese experiences during the Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the 20th century. Raised in an impoverished rural village, Little Bao and his older brothers embark on a crusade to save China from Christian missionaries and other "foreign devils" who are perceived to be the cause of their country's woes. What begins as a righteous march to the capital, bolstered by Little Bao's recurring visions of a pantheon of Chinese gods, quickly escalates in violence and rhetoric. By the time Little Bao and his amassed army, dubbed the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fist, reach the occupied city of Peking, morale is strained and the line between right and wrong has blurred. Yang doesn't shy from the ensuing bloodshed (beheadings are not uncommon), yet moments of lightheartedness and potential romance humanize the combatants, even as their campaigns take on zealous dimensions. Yang's artwork and storytelling are sober and accessible, and his character-driven approach brings compassion to a complex historical clash. Ages 12-up. Agent: Judith Hansen, Hansen Literary Agency. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Acclaimed graphic novelist Yang brings his talents to historical fiction in these paired novels set during China's Boxer Rebellion (1899-1900). In Boxers, life in Little Bao's peaceful rural village is disrupted when "foreign devils"-a priest and his phalanx of soldiers-arrive. The foreigners behave with astonishing arrogance, smashing the village god, appropriating property, and administering vicious beatings for no reason. Little Bao and his older brothers train in kung fu and swordplay in order to defend against them, and when Little Bao learns how to tap into the power of the Chinese gods, he becomes the leader of a peasant army, eventually marching to Beijing. Saints follows a lonely girl from a neighboring village. Unwanted by her family, Four-Girl isn't even given a proper name until she converts to Catholicism and is baptized-by the very same priest who bullies Little Bao's village. Four-Girl, now known as Vibiana, leaves home and finds fulfillment in service to the Church, while Little Bao roams the countryside committing acts of increasing violence as his army grows. Mysticism plays a part in both stories, and Yang's spare, clean drawing style makes it clear that Vibiana's visits from Joan of Arc and Bao's invocation of the powerful Chinese gods are very real to these characters. The juxtaposition of these opposing points of view, both of them sympathetic, makes for powerful, thought-provoking storytelling about a historical period that is not well known in the West.-Paula Willey, Baltimore County Public Library, Towson, MD (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Saints by Gene Luen Yang; illus. by the author; color by Lark PienMiddle School, High School First Second/Roaring Brook 172 pp.Yang's latest graphic novels are a "diptych" of books set during China's Boxer Rebellion of the early twentieth century. Boxers follows Little Bao, a village boy with an affinity for opera; Saints centers on Four-Girl, an unloved and unwanted child who perfects a revolting "devil-face" expression. They meet fleetingly as children, foreshadowing their respective roles in the conflict to come. Little Bao, with the help of an eccentric kung fu master, learns to harness the power of ancient gods, forming the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fist in an attempt to rid China of the "foreign devils" who spread Christianity across the country. Four-Girl sits squarely on the other side of the rebellion. After repeat visits from Joan of Arc in mystic visions, Four-Girl comes to the conclusion that she, too, is destined to become a maiden warrior. She converts to Christianity, takes the name Vibiana, and strives to protect China against the Little Bao-led uprising. The inevitable showdown between the two characters leads to a surprising and bleak conclusion. While neither volume truly stands alone (making for a significant price tag for the whole story), Yang's characteristic infusions of magical realism, bursts of humor, and distinctively drawn characters are present in both books, which together make for a compelling read. sam bloom(c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
